VFS ROADMAP (and vfs01.patch stage 1 available for testing)

[Martin P. Hellwig]

<cut>
    Also, the abstraction of 'being part of a cluster' does not necessarily
    imply that a machine's entire resources are devoted to the 'cluster'.
    It is my intention to allow system resources to be partitioned off so
    your workstation could be a standalone box but also provide resources
    (such as a disk partition, memory, cpu, and networking services) to
    a cluster, or to several clusters.  

    I want it to be as simple as a config file:

    cluster lab_cluster {
	hostid "dillon"
	disk /dev/ad0s1e as "disk1"
	netif fxp0 limit 5mbyte/s
	rendezvous [list at least one other machine in the cluster]
	cpu nom 50% max 75%
	memory nom 64mb
	reliability medium
    }
    cluster home_cluster {
	hostid "mylabstation"
	link my.home.machine
	filesystem "/home/dillon" as "/dillon"
	cpu nom 50% max 100%
	memory nom 64mb
	reliability high
    }
    One would be able to export raw disk partitions as block devices, or
    file systems (fully cache coherent within the cluster, managed by
    the kernel), cpu, memory, etc.
    One would be able to 'push into' a cluster (that is, run a shell or a
    program that operates 'as part of the cluster' rather then operates 
    just on the local machine), something like this:

    cexec home_cluster /bin/csh

    or

    cexec home_cluster xterm

    or <grin>:

    cexec lab_cluster startx

    In anycase, we are talking ~2 years down the line for that kind of
    functionality.  It will happen, though, and the more I progress with 
    the VFS work the better I'll be able to guage the cluster.

Do you think it will be like a full DragonFlyBSD install but then spread 
on to the clusters so that it is possible to log on to that virtual OS 
the same way like I do now with a physical machine?

--
mph